Schiff was responding to comments made by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who have invested a great deal in bitcoins and are attempting to start a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. (They also happen to be well-known for suing Mark Zuckerberg over the creation of Facebook.)

On Tuesday's "Squawk Box," Cameron Winklevoss said that "some definitely view it as gold 2.0," adding, "In terms of a store of value, it definitely has the properties of gold, and people are viewing it that way."

"To me, it looks like a modern-day tulip mania," Schiff said, referring to the fantastic rise and fall of the value of tulip bulbs in 17th-century Holland. "The reason people are buying bitcoins is because they think they're going to make money. They think the price is going up. And the price probably will go up. It'll keep going up until it implodes. And a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money in bitcoins."

Schiff scoffs at the idea that the bitcoin will become a common unit of online exchange.

"I don't think it's going to end up being a source of commerce for the world," he said. "I think right now it's a source of gambling."